


nausea

by Hazazel



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Sad Ending, mentions of belated non consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 19:48:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20476550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hazazel/pseuds/Hazazel
Summary: Light fears the night. He won’t think about it, instead focusing his days on capturing Kira with the task force. When he is zero-ing out on the investigation, everything melts away, there is only him, L and Kira left, a deadly triangle – as if L stood in between him and the murdered to prove Light that he’s right, that they’re one and the same. But late at night, when they’re alone in their room and there’s only silence surrounding them, he chokes.





	nausea

**Author's Note:**

> hi hi !! another death note fanfic, a translation of one of my own stories that i'd written in french like 3 years ago. hope you like it !! please don't forget to leave kudos and maybe even comment !!  
also a HUGE thank you to lorn, my beta for this story !!!! much love to her. her ao3 is seaboy

Light fears the night. He won’t think about it, instead focusing his days on capturing Kira with the task force. When he is zero-ing out on the investigation, everything melts away, there is only him, L and Kira left, a deadly triangle – as if L stood in between him and the murderer to prove Light that he’s right, that they’re one and the same. But late at night, when they’re alone in their room and there’s only silence surrounding them, he chokes.

* * *

Once again they’ve forgotten to eat before they collapse in their room, long after midnight, and the familiar click announces their door is locked. L freezes, his eyes darting around the room in search of a source of sugar. He finds none, sighs, and settles as usual on the foot of the bed, wordlessly pulling on the chain linking him to Light and dragging him along.

“Not putting on pyjamas, Light-kun?” He asks when the other crumbles besides him, unmoving. Light doesn’t answer, and thinks for a moment about sleeping right there, splayed out across the mattress, his feet dangling down the edge of the bed. L’s remark shakes him awake and he gathers his wits feebly, ridding himself of his trousers to put on a more comfortable pair of pants. He pulls on the chain to adjust his position and lays down under the covers, on his back, arms besides his torso – “Like a prisoner”, L once commented, “like you’re in a torture chamber”. Light hadn’t said anything, because it wasn’t a question, and he refused to give it an answer.

Night is never welcome when it torments and attacks, and Light is happy he hasn’t eaten anything when nausea takes a hold of him an hour later. L has closed his eyes, but his sleeping face is turned towards Light, as if the slightest Kira manifestation would suddenly wake him. Light can’t sleep. Fear of failure, a familiar companion, has kept him up many nights before. The tiredness and mental decline that go with it started up the vicious cycle of insomnia, anxiety and self-punishment. It took years to fight back – the return of this spiral he feared so much is enough to set off his frustration and his fear, steel claws closing in on his throat.

What if he _was_ Kira ? Next to L, he has spent his days chasing them for weeks on end, but if it’s only a game for the detective, a matter of pride, Light can’t take it as just a mere investigation. This is nothing like the cases he already helped solve. He isn’t afraid of being arrested, even though he’s the main and only suspect. There is no proof against him, and even if there were, he is a man of justice. He’d surrender if he knew he was guilty.

No, what makes his conscience scream and his stomach twist is the certainty he reads in L’s eyes whenever their gazes meet – “You are Kira and I’ll prove it to the entire world. I will destroy you”. L can’t be wrong when it comes to detective business, Light has resigned himself to it, but he knows he isn’t Kira. He isn’t a murderer, even if he sometimes wonders why he understands Kira so well, why he feels so connected to this case. And to L. Unlike what the detective seems to think, Light hasn’t forgotten anything. There aren’t any gaps in his memory, no blurry moments. However the sensation of having blood on his hands closes up the vice around his skull and the claws around his throat. He’ll soon have bags under his eyes as dark as L’s if he doesn’t stop having nightmares he doesn’t remember, ones that wake him before dawn, leaving him breathless, waiting for L to wake and start moving. Sleeping less than L, he’d have laughed if it were funny. He keeps hanging on, used to fatigue and mental strain.

Except when nausea swallows him whole. His thoughts zero in, close up on this very idea – he needs air, air, he can’t breathe, the world is shifting and leaving him behind. Fear is everything, his vision blurs, and he’s out of himself. A taste of death, a parody of sleep.

He almost gave in one night, thought about asking L to do something, anything, as long as it helped. That’s out of the question, he knows it, he can’t admit defeat without even fighting. It would be a slight against himself and L both.

* * *

“Is Light-kun sick?” He refuses to answer. Sheer pride is making him swallow words he wouldn’t even be capable of speaking past the knot in his throat. “I know you’re awake, no need to ignore me.”

Light still does, until morning comes, and he slowly blinks his thanks when L says to Mogi that they slept well. Even Matsuda doesn’t believe them anymore, after three days without any sleep, when L spills his cup of half melted sugar and he and Light lock themselves into obstinate silence, eyeing each other up with dull, ringed eyes. When they go to their room that night they both know exhaustion is keeping them up through sheer adrenaline, and when they wake in the morning, they’ll feel like they haven’t slept.

* * *

“Light-kun. Spending more nights without sleep could prove dangerous for our health, and it would compromise the investigation. I can’t sanction it.”

He’s lying down once more, eyes wide open, and he waits for the rest of the sentence. “Do something! Anything!” He wants to shout, but he knows no sound would come out if he opened his mouth.

“If Light-kun doesn’t answer, I will act for our safety, assuming I have your full consent.”

He doesn’t move. He can’t agree to or refuse something he knows nothing about. L seems to wait for this answer that doesn’t come, but then he moves forward, hands on the mattress for stability. Soon, they frame Light’s head, cautious not to scare him – the clicking of the chain seems to mark a countdown.

“One of the ways to sleep better is physical stimulation. It’ll get your brain tired enough.” L speaks so quietly the mics must only catch a whisper.

If that’s a way to make him say he’s Kira… He didn’t expect L and him to physically fight but this solution to their helplessness proved to be as natural as the rest, and not one day goes by without one of them starting a fight.

He is however shocked and disappointed that L decides to stoop so low and thought about making him cave in with _that_. Physical intimacy is something Light values, and the fact that he likes L’s doesn’t give him any right to abuse it.

Light closes his eyes. L has lowered himself above him until he’s completely in his space – he feels L’s body heat, smells sweetness and bitterness like a sugared coffee. He shivers, the ice fingers around his throat tighter than they’ve ever been. L moves his hand, touch barely there on his face – his ribs – his hip – his thigh. L lowers himself impossibly close.

“Stop that.”

At first L doesn’t listen. He seems so focused, the hand on Light’s thigh opens and closes.

“Stop that!” Light says, louder, almost yelling. It’s a miracle his voice is still working. L stops moving –Light’s body protests with a violent shudder, that echoes like cracking ice under his skull.

Tears, frustration and rage strewn together, gather at the corner of his eyes, and roll down his cheeks. L looks at them, face unreadable, and eventually scoots away. Light momentarily panics. L’s presence is as reassuring as it is troubling, Light doesn’t want him to go – not now, please, not now, the vice around his throat gets tighter and tighter and soon he’s suffocating, breath choppy. He doesn’t want to be alone, the crises always go away faster when Sayu is here to hold his hand.

He doesn’t want L to see him like this. There’s no one he can trust with his weakness.

L hasn’t gone away completely, instead lying down next to him, legs impossibly long now that they’re flat on the covers. He doesn’t let go of Light’s hand until his breathing evens out.

“I’m sorry, Light-kun. If I’d known you’d react like that, I would have tried something else.”

“I’m fine.” Light’s voice is rough, his resolve weak even to his own ears. He waits with a neutral expression for L to use this against him, to somehow try and prove he’s guilty. He won’t admit to anything, not when gold and coal galaxies fight behind his eyelids.L’s answer isn’t the one he was expecting.

“Sleep,” he whispers, and for once he’s talking to Light, the teenage boy on the bed next to him.

Light manages to sleep for a few hours before he’s ripped out of sleep by a silent scream. L is here, a hand in his hair to soothe him, and he spends the rest of the night in a state of semi-consciousness – he probably dreams that L doesn’t sleep, waiting for the sun to rise, stroking his hair.

* * *

“The camera isn’t working,” L mechanically says as the door closes and locks. “I asked Watari to turn it off between midnight and 7am.” As if that was sufficient explaining, L lays down next to him and continues last night’s conversation as if they hadn’t been interrupted by the day. “If looking for Kira causes this, Light-kun, I can ask for you to be taken out of the investigation. You’d be under constant surveillance, but you’d be back home.”

“No. I said I’d be with you till the end, I keep my promises.” The words come out jittery, and Light’s hand reflexively close like the ones around his neck – to slow down the nausea, to prevent the very air from keeping him alive – before they slowly open. L watches without a word, his empty, bloodshot eyes looking through him like every time he’s thinking. More than ever, Kira is present, covering them in his shadow, and for one moment he believes the murderer is here with them, before remembering that they’re alone and if one of them had to be Kira, it’d be him. This realisation gets a choppy laugh out of him, that ends on a fit of coughing when the lack of air leaves him breathless.

“There were no notes of respiratory illnesses on Light-kun’s file…” L says pensively.

“I’m fine.” It’s the second time he says this lie in as many nights, but this time it’s almost natural – L looks at him for the time it takes to blink before turning away and sitting at his place, at the foot of the bed.

At 3am, Light gives up, breath short, dazed by fatigue. He crawls in, chain rattling, until he’s next to L, a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Light-kun doesn’t need to-”

“Make me sleep, if you can. I’m not Kira, I know that. He wouldn’t get that close to you and he wouldn’t have trouble sleeping.” His voice is bitter, but doesn’t waver.

“There is insomnia medicine.”

Light doesn’t answer, shivering from how cold he feels now that he’s not under the covers. L notices and gets closer.

“You have to ask for help to get some… Are you asking for help, Light-kun?”

His chest has almost stopped moving when L finishes his sentence and for a brief moment the detective looks at him, before furrowing his brow and leaning in to lay his lips on Light’s. Once, twice, three times, the fourth, he waits until Light answers the kiss. They are breathless when they separate but Light almost immediately falls into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

“Why did you try this… method ?” Light asks one day.

“You stopped looking away when we showered.”

“What’s that supposed to mean ?”

“Physical attraction.”

Light doesn’t really understand, he’s never been attracted to anyone – not even by L, but as the investigation went on, after they’d been linked at the wrist and forced to spend their days together, he found out the detective was incredibly brilliant, which… perhaps was enough. Having to shower with someone made you hyper aware of their presence by your side, in a space formerly empty.

L was far from ugly, in spite of Misa’s disgusted looks at his lengthy jeans and his oversized shirts.

“Maybe so.”

* * *

A week goes by before Light realises that if L talked about attraction, maybe it was reciprocated – probably was, actually. L hasn’t tried to kiss him again and he silently thanks him for that. Kisses are too intimate, too precious, to be used as tools.

He hates himself for wanting more. The mere thought is enough to start another crisis and he collapses behind the shower curtain.

When L doesn’t hear water running, he rips the curtain open, finding Light on the floor, face between his knees, breathing louder than ever. L probably thinks Light’s reflexes will kick in, sparring being a welcomed distraction, but he doesn’t answer the kick to his ribs while a bruise slowly takes shape under his skin. The quiet seems unreal and after what seems like forever, Light gets up and puts on his khakis.

* * *

“Light-kun, I’m sorry.”

L is probably expecting retaliation, but Light doesn’t move from his corpse position under the covers. He falls asleep unusually quick, without sleeping all that well, and makes no comment during the following days, lying down as far from the detective as possible. Waking up from the same nightmare he can’t remember, suffocating in silence when he thinks even L can’t see.

* * *

He can’t take it anymore, it’s a miracle he held out this long without the task force noticing. L looks at him so intently that “K I R A” seems engraved on his forehead indelibly. The detective looks as tired as him, as if he only slept as much as Light – which makes no sense, but he isn’t going to complain when it slows L down enough that he can’t block the blow to his face, although it is less powerful than Light’s usual punches. Before L can move, Light leans in and kisses him, only stopping when he’s out of air.

If only L could stop looking at him so coldly, like he looks at the Yotsuba members on the screens, if only Light could prove what he feels deep down – that he’s not Kira, never was, that understanding his actions isn’t the same as doing the same, that the mere thought of killing, even criminals, makes him bristle with disgust. L keeps looking at him while he bursts into a fit of coughing so violent he thinks he might throw up.

“Kira thinks he’s God. He thinks he’s so perfect he can kill without being guilty. I can’t stand being Light! Every night I choke on… air! I don’t care about what you think, I _don’t want to be_ Kira.”

L doesn’t say anything and the room is cold, so cold, when Light knows the heaters are working. He simply lies down, unmoving, without looking at L, until he falls asleep and his tears stop flowing.

* * *

L looks at him strangely – sadness? Guilt? Light doesn’t know and stops caring when he touches the notebook.

The notebook falling from the sky. The first death. Ryuk. Kira. L. The investigation, Misa, L, universityLtheinvestigationforgettingL – everything comes back so sharply that he screams in terror, in pure jubilation.

He is Kira. He is… proud of it. He’s God, who wouldn’t be proud? Who wouldn’t be the most important person in the world right now?

L doesn’t look at him, focused on capturing Higuchi – Light doesn’t look at him, not because he doesn’t want to, but because he must not. Kira will do what needs to be done, Kira will kill L. No matter if he won’t ever sleep soundly again, if he’ll have to endure Ryuk’s laughter, if he’s planning the death of his only equal.

* * *

Light leans down over L and can’t help a cruel smile. He must let the detective know he was right, that he died with the answer. His eyes widen, he understood – Kira’s victory is certain. He is surprised to feel L’s hand squeezing his, so hard it hurts. An apology. Light remembers L’s hands crushing his when he apologised again, when they’d kissed and slept next to each other again. An apology for not catching him on time.

Kira has won, Light has won, he defeated L and his lies and his manipulations, and if he doesn’t regret winning, Light allows himself – when the night is cold and life a boring grey – to think of what he lived. When familiar fingers close in on his throat, he welcomes them like someone who knows they can’t escape.

  
  



End file.
